Abstract

A challenge is posed by the rapid demographic change – in case of the increasing elderly population – accompanied in concert with the transfer of public services and communication into the web-based activities. Especially elderly people need to have access to these new services – both having requisite skills and willingness – to use the equipment needed and understand the information offered. This paper tackles how to guide, motivate and introduce ICTs to elderly people from their own needs on. Focus is in informal learning: computer clubs and home education. The data is gathered from two senior citizens’ computer clubs in the cities of Joensuu and Pieksämäki, Finland, in years 2007 – 2008, and from a teaching experiment that took place in four households in March 2008. The results indicate that elderly people are eager and capable of learning computer skills, they appreciate individualized f2f-teaching and have a need to “staying in touch with the modern-day”.

Citation

Naumanen, M. & Tukiainen, M. (2008). K-60 - Access to ICT granted but not taken for granted. In C. Bonk et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2008 (pp. 2241-2250). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).